The 508 is something of a revolution for Peugeot
I’d never though I would use ‘revolution’ and ‘Peugeot’ in the same sentence, but that was before the 508, which is available in petrol and diesel variants, and in saloon and estate, came along.
And because you can see the effort that Peugeot has put into its visual appeal, you really want the 508 to tick all the boxes once you’ve added a bit of mileage.
Peugeot, being French, has always had oodles of style. Citroen we associate with flair, and Peugeot well, with a functional style. The 508, however, is being aimed in a different direction. Angela Merkel, hold onto your hat. This is a car designed to compete on an equal footing with the Germans, the Audis, the Mercedes and the BMWs of this world, and to achieve this Peugeot has had to get snobby on the outside.
Since Jaguar elevated the car into a practical but beautiful art form in the 1950s, drivers have become obsessed with badge snobbery.
As the years advanced, British cars stayed beautiful but became unreliable, and German cars became much more reliable if not necessarily any more beautiful that they were.
The legacy of the German domination of the executive car market is that drivers automatically fell for the car’s badge rather than what was lurking under the bonnet. It’s called Pavlo’s Dog syndrome in the car industry
And so the Mercedes and BMW figureheads at the bow have for generations influenced why motorists, drawn to premium brands, will not touch a car that screams ‘yes’ if the badge unfortunately whispers ‘no.’
My only advice is to follow the maxim of Oscar Wilde, who didn’t drive: people who know the price of everything often know the value of nothing.
So it is against this cultural backdrop of image and superficiality that Peugeot has launched the wonderful 508 upon us, and I have no doubt it will purloin BMW and Audi drivers.
There are a multitude of reasons why. Consider the price: the Active 1.6 HDi (112 bhp), with annual road tax of E160, is retailing for just under E29,000 (contact Trinity Peugeot in Wexford@053-91-59688), and this version, which I drove for a couple of days, comes with anti-theft wheel nuts, rear parking aid, hill assist,electric lumbar adjustment, cruise control, electronic stability control and anti-slip regulation traction system.
After calculating the fuel economy which, combined is returning 4.7 l/100km or, in English that makes sense, about 50 mpg, and going from 0 to 60 (100kph) in eleven seconds (though the 2.0 HDi has a much quicker acceleration), you realise that the 508 is a lot of car for your money.